Patents, IETF and Network Operators

Thu Jan 21 16:38:56 UTC 2010

On Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 10:09 AM, Scott Brim <scott.brim at gmail.com> wrote:
> Jorge Amodio allegedly wrote on 01/21/2010 10:41 EST:
>> As an starting point you should read "The Tao of the IETF" RFC4677 (currently,
>> update draft in progress).
>>
>> About your particular question read section 8.4.5.
>>
>> Regards
>> Jorge
>
> Right.  And it's subtler than you think.  Some network operators have
> patents (not just vendors).  Some are held by organizations that only
> exist to hold patents and don't actually know much about networking.
> And just because something is patented doesn't mean it isn't
> interoperable -- most networking standards are patented.

Just like as
- "US Patent 6701329 - Aging and scavenging of DNS resource records"
(Microsoft)
- "US Patent 7337910 - Methods and devices for responding to request
for unregistered domain name to indicate a predefined type of service"
(Verisign SiteFinder fiasco)
- "US Patent  6560634 - Method of determining unavailability of an
internet domain name" (Verisign)
- "US Patent  7580982 - Email filtering system and method" (Go Daddy)
- "US Patent 7130878 - Systems and methods for domain name
registration by proxy" (Go Daddy)

Just to list a few.

Be careful the next time you use "vi", somebody may have already
patented that regular expression.

Cheers
Jorge